


What You Get Instead of an Apology

by labonnemon



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labonnemon/pseuds/labonnemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being stuck in the presidential mansion isn't helping anybody. Haymitch tries to apologize for some unkind words. Katniss is not in a forgiving mood. </p>
<p>A bit of emotional erotica that takes place during the latter parts of Mockingjay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Get Instead of an Apology

After several hours, the guards finally drag me out of the closet and away from the cocoon of strangling silk. They escort me with steady arms back to my room. I've stopped screaming, and neither guard fills the silence. They drop me just inside my door and close it behind me. I hear the lock click, caging me, the unpredictable beast I have become.

 

I can smell him before I turn around, a combination of liquored sweat and some harsh soap. He's there in my chair when I turn, freshly bathed and clothed, sitting in front of a tray of food clearly meant for us to share. After the rationing of 13 it looks like an incredible feast, but the smell only makes me nauseated and brings back to mind the words from his mouth that caused me to flee in the first place.

 

“I'll be honest, sweetheart. That last bit was below – ”

 

I don't give him time to finish the sentence. I knock the table and tray out of the way and fly at him. He's sobered up, though, and he's quick, he grabs my hands and launches himself out of the chair. We struggle around, my fingernails aimed once more at his face, his grip tight on my wrists, until the backs of my knees hit the bed, and I fall backward. He lands heavily on top of me, pinning me, stretching my arms out to each side, as far from his face as possible. I start sobbing, screaming at him, my sewn-together skin stinging as it is stretched in new ways, screaming Prim's name, shouting that he'll never understand. He shuts me up by yelling back at me, loud and so close to my face.

 

“This isn't news, girl! I know. She's gone. They're all gone. I know.”

 

I quiet myself, breathing hard underneath his body, his weight and the smell of him making me feel sicker than ever. I start squirming. My hips roll and wiggle, trying to find a free spot, and then Haymitch does something completely unexpected. He moves his body and I feel him against me, a hard, urgent thing, grinding into my hips. After seeing Snow in chains, after all that he told me about the bombs, after the needling words and the nightmares in that silken morphling closet, Haymitch and his misplaced desire make me feel ready to retch up everything I've ever consumed. To be empty. To be clean in a way I haven't in over two years.

 

“Haymitch, move, unless you want me to vomit all over you.”

 

He doesn't hesitate, just darts away from me, opening the bathroom door. I sprawl to the porcelain toilet and I am granted my wish. I lose count of how many times I am sick. Haymitch doesn't comfort me, but he leaves the door open, and when I finally stop, I look up to see him watching me from the bed. I crawl my way to the sink and think I am going to have a cool drink of water when I see the white rose in the glass. I vomit again in the sink. When it's over, I get my drink of water. I sip at first, then gulp it down, handful after handful. Eventually I look around and see that the tub is full of steamy water, a beautifully thick layer of bubbles begging me to sink in, deep down. I try to lift myself to my feet, using the edge of the sink, but I fall over in a heap. Haymitch stands and walks in to help me. I'm so tired and sore from heaving that I don't argue. He sits me on the edge of the luxurious bath.

 

“I ran this for you when I got here. I think you need it. I'm going to undress you and help you into the tub. That's it. Is that all right?” I can tell that his request for permission is the closest to an apology I'm going to get now, so I nod my head. He cautiously takes off my clothing and gently lowers me into the tub. His shirt gets soaked in the process, but he doesn't seem to mind. I hiss through my teeth as the heat of the water hurts my raw skin, and I don't notice his withdrawal until he's almost to the doorway. I can't help myself when the words come out. I can only tolerate so much time alone these days.

 

“Haymitch.” He turns, looks at me. His face is blank. “Stay with me? Please?”

 

He nods. He pads over to the patch of floor next to the tub, sits with his legs crossed and holds my hand in his. The pressure of his palm against mine is enough to calm me as I adjust to the temperature. The steam and the soft bubbles smell familiar, a buttery lemon scent that reminds me of baking. Peeta. I lean my head back against the ceramic edge of the tub and sigh, my breath still a series of shudders. Haymitch gives my hand a squeeze. I don't look at him, I don't squeeze back. Now that I'm in the tub, the idea of washing my hair and body seems insurmountable; I'm so tired. I just want to soak until my skins shrivels like it did in the lake with my father so long ago. My head tilts to the side and my last look is at Haymitch's metal gray eyes before I doze off naturally for the first time in weeks.

 

When I wake up a few minutes later, my hand is empty and Haymitch isn't beside the tub. I sit up and then his hand is on my shoulder, gently pushing me back into the water. He's behind me, sitting with his legs on either side of my shoulders, trousers rolled up, soft yellow sponge in his other hand. “You'll have to stay put if you want me to wash your hair, sweetheart.” He strokes the sponge down my arm and it feels rough but pleasant. Then, the sight of his hand so near my skin scares me for a reason I don't understand. I try to pull away, but his free hand moves from my shoulder to my mouth and pulls me back, leans down to whisper in my ear.

 

“Please, Katniss. Let me take care of you. Just this once.”

 

He sounds ragged, broken, his breath still laced with the golden spirit he stole from the president's quarters. But Haymitch never asks me for anything, so I don't pull away. He slowly takes his hand from my mouth, two of his fingers trailing across my lips, to my cheek, along the line of my jaw and tracing the edge of my ear. They find their way into my mangled mess of hair and start massaging my scalp. He is not efficient like my prep team, he is not gentle like Prim. His short fingernails are enough to scratch the skin, and he rubs the butter lemon bubbles in small circles, each fingertip moving in an arc with the others. They find their way from the top of my head to my nape, and then to the curved place where each shoulder meets my neck. My eyes open, and my skin begins to tingle in a new way that isn't the pain of knitting flesh. It's something I haven't felt since those confused moments of kissing Peeta in our cave, or when Gale kissed me hard before the victory tour. I can hear Haymitch breathing harder, and as I look down, I see that the bubbles have broken up and my body is visible beneath the surface of the water. I remember feeling what he pressed against me and the confusion only makes it worse, so I do the only thing I know how to do anymore: I protect myself. I spin around, water splashing everywhere, and grab Haymitch's hands, twisting his wrists in impossible directions. The only problem is that Haymitch is a fighter, too. We're programmed the same way.

 

“Damn it, girl!” He lurches forward into the tub and I am forced to retreat, to release his hands or be pinned underwater by his bulk. I stand and grab the only thing at hand, an ivory soap dish from the sink, and I hoist it high, ready to slam it down on his head. I look down and he has stopped moving, he's kneeling in the water, fully clothed, soaked, heaving, and staring at me. I remember that I am naked, and it renews my anger. I bring the dish down at his upturned face. Haymitch is just lucky that my aim is horrible with anything but a bow in my hands – he easily knocks the dish away and drags me down, back into the tub. I land on my backside in a huff, splashing water everywhere, and the impact sends a jolt of pain up my spine. In the small moment when I am between breaths, Haymitch slides forward and presses his mouth against mine. I hear his voice in my head, _“Let me take care of you.”_ The tingling starts again and I think of President Snow, of two victors defiling what was surely his private suite. Haymitch kisses me harder and I stop pretending that I'm above it. I kiss him back. He inhales, moves his arms from a defensive position and wraps them around my waist, pulls me to him, hips to hips. His clothes are still on. I pull off his shirt, and it's difficult because it's so wet, but I manage. He wraps one hand around what's left of my hair and pulls it down my back, exposing my throat. He moves his mouth down to the small well between my collarbones, and he licks it. I gasp, it feels so good, and my hands are hanging at my sides in the water. I start to feel like I'm vibrating and I don't know what to do. He lets go of my hair and rakes his fingers down my spine, the nails digging grooves into my skin. I move my neck away from his mouth and look at his face.

 

“Show me, Haymitch. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel good anymore. Show me. Please.”

 

We're not used to kind words with each other, so the request seems to light a new fire in his eyes. He places his hands on the sides of my legs, wraps them up and around my hips, and he twists us around, placing my shoulders against the sloped back of the bath. More water splashes onto the slick white tiles of the floor. He finds the junction of my neck and shoulder once more with his mouth and whispers.

 

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

 

He leans back enough to wrestle off his soaked pants and throw them on the floor, and I see that his body is scarred and wrecked, a testament to struggle, just like mine. His blonde hair is strewn with gray, small curls of it on his chest and trailing down his stomach to the patch where all of him comes together, where I can see the hardness his trousers had covered in our struggle on the bed. He doesn't speak anymore, just takes my hand with no trepidation and wraps it around the length of him. Even in the lukewarm water I can feel how hot he is, the strain of flesh as he grows, wrapped in my fingers. I know that this is how it will be, hot and hard and I know it will hurt, but for once I am not afraid of feeling something real. I need him to be the one to break me this way, we're the worst of them, after all, we both of us always come back to the square one of personal survival.

 

His hand slides against me in the water, between my legs, finds a place that nobody has ever touched, not even me. I never had time for it. In only a few seconds, I realize that this is why women and men still get married, why they end up with children, in spite of the terror that awaits in their twelfth year. His hand on me feels incredible, the first truly good thing my body has ever felt, and I don't want him to stop. He doesn't.

 

He doesn't say anything when I stop touching him, when my hands find the edges of the tub and cling in desperation, and he makes it even better when I say his name, when I say “Please,” a word I never use with him.

 

When he stops moving his fingers, when he pulls them away, I moan, I was so close to something, like the wave in the arena curving over before it crashed in such deadly glory. He chuckles, a quiet thing, and brings his hips up to mine, groping for my hand and placing it around his shaft once more. He growls when I squeeze it, tugging on it slightly.

 

“You know where it goes, sweetheart. Let me take care of you. Let me give you what you need.”

 

I'm sure my movements are more blundering than seductive, but I do know where I want him, so I lead him there, feel the tip of him nudging inside. He spares me any half-hearted attempts at romanticism and doesn't hesitate, just gets it over in one hard thrust. I try to bite back my cry, it does hurt, but then he keeps moving inside me and the pain changes from a sharp feeling to a delicious throbbing rhythm. Eventually I cling to his hips and pull him in as deep as I can. My body reacts, I can feel my muscles flexing around him, and each time they do, Haymitch moans just a little bit. I know he feels good, I know that this is not just what I needed, but what he needed, too.

 

Our breath comes faster, we pant like animals, the air is full of lemon and butter and stale liquor breath, the water gets cooler and finally, after what seems like days, he thrusts deep inside one final time and stays there, groaning. He calls quietly for me, “Katniss,” he hardly ever says my name, and now he's moaning it like a prayer. His last moments find a spot that makes me shiver, makes the wave break, and I wrap my legs around his scarred body, keeping him close. I want to prolong the feeling as much as possible. It spreads over me like a fever, from my core out to my fingertips and toes, and there is a balmy sensation that lasts for minutes after, his body still linked with mine, his breath coming more slowly.

 

The water finally gets too cold, and Haymitch blindly uses a foot to pull the stopper out of the drain. He pulls away and the sudden departure is harsh, the walls once more coming down between us. Neither of us says anything. I step out of the tub and grab a towel, hand one to Haymitch. We dry off in silence, the oils in the bath having done a little to ease the pain of my still-new skin. I touch myself as gently as I can, but my body is still so sensitive that each graze of cloth against flesh warrants a shiver or sharp inhale. After this happens a couple of times, I can feel Haymitch looking at me, and when I turn to him, he's smirking. My instinct is to balk, to say something rude, because I don't like letting Haymitch think he's got the upper hand. But I bite my tongue. I think about what just happened, how he filled that void inside me that has thirsted until today for nothing more than my arrow through Snow's heart.

 

I want him to come back to me. I need him. I'm a broken creature, and he might be the only person left who knows how to set my bones.

 

So I don't say anything. I get dressed. Being Haymitch and being unabashed by finding himself in strange quarters without wearable clothes, he wraps a towel around his hips and heads for the door. As he raises his hand to knock for the guards, I open my mouth, afraid he will disappear and leave me alone again. He knows me well enough to turn around and speak for me.

 

“Oh no, sweetheart. Don't fret. You let me in. You'll be hard-pressed to get rid of me now.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Hunger Games is a great trilogy written by the well-known Suzanne Collins. 
> 
> It's her playground, I'm just screwing around on the monkey bars.


End file.
